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The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

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Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#21

Post by saryant »

jhwitham wrote: post #6
dharmon wrote: post #2

If this short bio is interesting, you may enjoy the much more in-depth biography, _Titan_, by Ron Chernow. In addition to an incredibly thorough (and even-handed, IMO) treatment of Rockefeller, I found it an interesting perspective on the post-war period in the US.

Titan is a great read. For a more throughout book of the oil industry there is also Yergin's The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.

Follow that up with Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll and you've got a fascinating and compelling look at the last ~120 years of oil and American history.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#22

Post by ncd »

neaanopri wrote: post #9

It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…

In addition to the other comments, I would also note that it's untrue that Rockefeller started doing philanthropic work as "atonement" for his business practices. Even as a young man just getting his start as a bookkeeper at a small merchant, he gave a significant portion of his then-meager pay to charity.

He was a complicated man, no doubt, and he tended to gloss over some of the consequences of his actions when recalling his past, but he was, mostly, just vilified for being a brilliant businessman at a time when it was popular to do so.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#23

Post by refurb »

nmrm2 wrote: post #19
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…

> The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice. I get your point, but there are exceptions. In particular, utilities come to mind. All locations I've lived except 1 provided exactly one option for high-speed internet. I don't see that changing in most parts of the US any time soon. Ditto for water and electricity, depending on l…

Aren't most utilities gov't supported monopolies? I think the logic is that for some utilities it doesn't make economic sense to have 5 companies all providing water to a house (5 water lines underground?).

The gov't gives the utility a monopoly in exchange for full coverage to all customers and pricing oversight.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#24

Post by jerryhuang100 »

"To crush his competitors, Rockefeller would create a shortage of the railroad tank cars that transported oil. He’d then buy up all the barrels on the market so his competitors would have no place to store or ship their oil. He bought up all the available chemicals that were necessary to refine oil."

i thought it's common strategy played in AOE....

this post makes a great companion with another recent post about Uber on Lyft.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#25

Post by narag »

WalterBright wrote: post #14
guelo wrote: post #10

I kept thinking of Bill Gates while reading this, and not just because both of them turned to philanthropy after building their empires. The only reason Bill Gates is not richer than Rockefeller is because of the anti-monopoly legislation that was invented to stop Rockefeller. Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Inte…

> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s. I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it. As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroye…

Netscape was best until about version 3. It had some niceties that IE lacked, actually IE was not even acceptable. Netscape 4.7 was "not so nice" and IE 4 was faster so, although terribly unsafe, it dominated market for years.

Oh, and by the time Netscape 4.7 and IE 4.01 were released, Microsoft had already destroyed Netscape's business.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#26

Post by aerovistae »

jerryhuang100 wrote: post #24

"To crush his competitors, Rockefeller would create a shortage of the railroad tank cars that transported oil. He’d then buy up all the barrels on the market so his competitors would have no place to store or ship their oil. He bought up all the available chemicals that were necessary to refine oil." i thought it's common strategy played in AOE.... this post makes a great companion with another recent post about Uber…

Hahahahaha as an avid AoE player I enjoy this observation. Indeed I do always sell my excess food ASAP to drive down the price.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#27

Post by gnaritas »

WalterBright wrote: post #14
guelo wrote: post #10

I kept thinking of Bill Gates while reading this, and not just because both of them turned to philanthropy after building their empires. The only reason Bill Gates is not richer than Rockefeller is because of the anti-monopoly legislation that was invented to stop Rockefeller. Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Inte…

> Without the antitrust lawsuit Microsoft would have been able to kill off Apple and Netscape in the 90s and kept the web bottled up within Internet Explorer in the 00s. I used Netscape in the 90s. It was a crummy product that crashed if you looked at it. IE was much more stable. IE was better, much better. Opera was also available, but there wasn't much to recommend it. As for Apple in the 90s, Apple nearly destroye…

> IE was much more stable

Until Microsoft stopped keeping up with everyone else. You're reinforcing his point, Microsoft would have put everyone else out of business had it not been for antitrust issues. Competition is vital even when it's sub-par because it won't always be.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#28

Post by aerovistae »

dharmon wrote: post #2

If this short bio is interesting, you may enjoy the much more in-depth biography, _Titan_, by Ron Chernow. In addition to an incredibly thorough (and even-handed, IMO) treatment of Rockefeller, I found it an interesting perspective on the post-war period in the US.

Cool anecdote from Titan, one of countless:

  Rockefeller was relentless in ferreting out ways to cut costs. During an inspection tour of a Standard Oil plant in New York City, for instance, he observed a machine that soldered the lids on five-gallon cans of kerosene destined for export. Upon learning that each lid was sealed with 40 drops of solder, he asked, "Have you ever tried 38?" It turned out that when 38 drops were applied, a small percentage of the cans leaked. None leaked with 39, though. "'That one drop of solder', said Rockefeller,...'saved $2,500 the first year; but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled--became immensely greater than it was then; and the saving has gone steadily along, one drop on each can, and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars"' (Chernow 1998, pp. 180-81). Over the course of his career at the helm of Standard Oil, "Rockefeller cut the unit costs of refined oil almost in half" (Ibid., p. 150).

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#29

Post by PhilWright »

"Although Standard Oil was eventually forced to break into multiple companies because it was ruled a monopoly, BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron (among others) are all subsidiaries of Standard Oil."

This is not accurate. BP stands for British Petroleum and has never been part of Standard Oil. BP has bought a couple of companies that used to be part of Standard Oil.

Re: The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller

#30

Post by gnaritas »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
neaanopri wrote: post #9

It's shocking that they present this story as a tale of virtue. If being an entrepreneur is a noble calling, then we should be ashamed of Rockerfeller for his ruthless tactics, not praising him for it. If we want to praise capitalists and capitalism, then we should be villifying Rockerfeller for his monopolistic tactics. He was too clever by half as a CEO, since his tactics eventually brought down the ire of the gove…

> horrific business practices I recommend that you read "Titan" by Chernow. Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich. During his career, he caused the price of kerosene to drop 70%, and stay down. This was good for the expanding country. During the anti-trust trial, Rockefeller was steadily losing market share to nimbler, aggressive competitors. There was no need for the government to break it up, it wa…

> The popular narrative that, unchecked by government, a business will eventually rise to absorb everything is not borne out by practice.

There is no such popular narrative-that's merely a strawman you've created-the popular narrative is that monopolies can and do form (not always, but can) in the absence of government rules to prevent them and that such monopolies are bad for capitalism. That is a fact borne out by history.

> Rockefeller is mostly guilty simply of being very rich

No, he's guilty of abusing the power of his near monopoly to sabotage competition just as the OP said. He's not reviled for his wealth, but for the unethical ways in which it was maintained.

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